


Nickel and Dime

by Linden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Car Camping at Walmart, Fleeing the Law in Crappy Pick-Ups, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Pre-Series, Suspected Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-03-30
Packaged: 2018-03-17 13:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3530969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linden/pseuds/Linden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was unlikely, Dean felt, that they'd be coming back to Montana: Child Protection Services had a real nasty habit of not forgetting people's names.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title hails from Peter Bradley Adam's _The Longer I Run,_ which is just very . . . Dean. Mid-thirties Dean more than younger Dean, really, but I'm unlikely to write within the canon timeframe anytime soon, and I love this song too much to leave it alone.
> 
> Someday I will stop hijacking song lyrics for my own nefarious fic-naming purposes, I swear I will.
> 
> I'll add that this fic is also known as _The One in Which I Couldn't Decide on a POV and So Used a Lot of Them_ and also _The One I Am Fairly Certain Had a Point When I Began It But Which Seems to Have Lost Said Point Along the Way._ Feedback, as ever, is so very much appreciated, particularly on the bits from outsiders' POV.

**October 1995**

**Tuesday**

 

‘Dean.’

Dean finished the cut he was making on a heavy piece of pine and looked up.  His wood shop teacher was writing out a yellow hall pass at her desk, pen scratching harsh and sharp.

‘Yeah?’ he asked, warily.

‘Office just called. You have a brother here, uh, Sam? Seventh grade?’ 

His gut tightened, and he was heading toward her before he ever really registered that he was moving.  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, what—’

‘He’s in the main office.  They need you to go down and talk to some people. Don’t know about what.’ She handed him the hall pass. ‘Shut down that saw and hang up your goggles before you go.’

Dean ignored the saw, tossed his goggles in the general direction of a peg, and went.

***

The school John had parked them at the beginning of last month was in western Montana, with two gyms, one swimming pool, a pain in the ass mathematics teacher Dean had twice tested for possession, and three floors’ worth of kids—seventh and eighth grade on the first, nine through twelve on the upper two.  Sammy hadn't said anything about it either way, and Dean had kept his mouth shut because Sam had, but privately he'd been friggin' delighted that he had his little brother back in the same school building again. He'd been giving the kid his space, he really had, but he liked that he was around, all the same: liked that he could ruffle Sam's hair as the little geek passed him in the hall upstairs on his little geek-y way to a ninth grade math class, that he could look across the cafeteria when their lunch periods matched up to see him tucked up with a book or working on his homework or, more often these past few weeks, chatting with one or two of his classmates, safe and whole and shy and smiling. He wondered now what in the hell had happened that afternoon to land the kid in the office. He'd just seen him three periods ago, when Sam had been hurrying towards algebra and he’d been sauntering out of study hall; his baby brother had looked like he was wound up tighter than a tick, but it’s not like that was anything _new_ , and he’d looked up at Dean with the same affectionate exasperation as always when Dean had tousled his hair and grinned as he’d gone past. 

Reaching the first floor, Dean jogged down the corridor to the glass-walled office at the end, dodged around a gaggle of parents by the doors, and fetched up in front of the welcoming desk. He couldn't see Sam.

‘Can I help you?’ the woman behind the desk asked, pleasantly.

 He pushed a hand back through his hair, his hurt shoulder aching with the movement. ‘Yeah. M’ brother’s down here. Sam Winchester?  He all right?’

‘Oh, _Sam_. Such a sweetheart. Of course.’ She was half-turning toward the door marked _Principal_ at her back. ‘Do you have your hall pass?  He’s in Dr. Epley’s—’

Dean left her, still talking, and went through the closed door without knocking, ignoring the indignant ‘Excuse me!’ from behind him.  There were two other adults in the comfortable office on the other side of the door ( _late thirties mid-sixties civilians no threat SAM_ ), but he had eyes only for his little brother, who was looking up at him from where he was sitting by the window—mouth set, face pale, two spots of color high on his cheeks, arms tucked tightly around his skinny ribs.  He was angry, which was obvious, and he was _scared_ , which wasn’t, and Dean didn’t bother to shut the door, just crossed the room to crouch down in front of him. 

‘Hey, kiddo,’ he said, giving the kid’s knee a brief squeeze. ‘You okay?’

Sam gave a short, sharp nod, but his mouth was trembling, just a little. 

‘Dean?’

He looked over his shoulder. He knew the principal, who was moving to close the door he’d left open, but it was the woman in heels and the neat dark suit who’d spoken, and her he didn’t know at all. In her late thirties, tired-looking but pretty, she had sharp blue eyes that Dean didn’t much like the look of, because he was pretty sure they could see too much. _Fed_ , he thought, until he realized that she wasn’t carrying a weapon, and his stomach twisted half a heartbeat before she showed him her ID, because damn it, he knew what this was.

‘Hello,’ she said, voice pleasant as could be. ‘My name’s Órla Grey, from Child and Family Services.  I’m so very sorry we had to call you away from class.  Would you sit?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ he said, settling into one of the empty chairs beside Sam. He forced down the queasy fear seizing in his stomach.  _Play dumb._   ‘Sure.’ He looked over at his little brother, quirked a half smile at him. ‘You in trouble, squirt?’

‘Not at all,’ Órla-Grey-from-Child-and-Family-Services replied, with a smile that seemed genuine.  ‘All I’ve heard from Dr. Epley and Sam’s teachers this afternoon—’

What the hell had she been doing talking to Sam’s _teachers_?

‘—is what a fine student and general sweetheart he is.’

 _Play dumb, play dumb, play dumb_. ‘ . . .’m _I_ in trouble, then?’

‘No.’ Her smile was crooked and charming; Dean almost found himself returning it.  ‘Though as I understand it, that makes this a rather red-letter day for you, Mr. Winchester.’ She didn’t sit, just settled back against the edge of Dr. Epley’s desk, easy and relaxed. ‘As I said, I’m sorry we had to pull you from class. I was hoping actually to speak with your father, but Sam tells me he’s out of town.’

‘Yeah,’ Dean said, easy, because that part wasn’t even a lie. ‘Look, is this about a bill or somethin’? You wanna give me your card, I can have our dad call you when he gets back, but—’

Órla was shaking her head, gently. ‘It’s nothing about tuition, Dean. Child and Family Services, we just—we just keep a lookout, okay?  Make sure that all of our kids are safe, that their families have everything they need to take care of them. Can I ask how long your dad’s been gone?’

 Dean shrugged. ‘Couple days,’ he said, though it had been nearly a week. ‘He’s chasin’ down a lead on a job.’

 ‘And you and Sam are living in a motel, off 90?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. His mouth quirked, not pleasantly. ‘We’re poor, Ms. Grey.  That a problem?’ 

'Not for me,’ she replied, easy and mild. ‘The house I grew up in had seven kids and no running water; a motel room sounds pretty comfy.’ She glanced at the open folder beside her hip.  ‘And yours has nifty kitchenettes, if I’m remembering it correctly. Do you like to cook?’

Dean shrugged.  ‘Don’t mind it.’

‘He's really good at it.’ Sam’s voice, defensive. ‘Dean makes us really good pancakes and burgers. And awesome mac and cheese.’

‘'S an important life skill, being able to make awesome mac and cheese,’ Órla agreed, with another smile, but her eyes were still on Dean, clear and steady and measuring. ‘You have any other family nearby to share your chef skills with, Dean?  Grandparents or cousins or anyone?’

Sammy shifted, irritably, beside him. ‘I already told you all of this. Why are—’

‘Cause Ms. Grey here wants to make sure you weren’t lyin’, little brother,’ Dean said, without looking at him. Órla held his gaze and didn’t deny it. ‘S okay, Sammy. And no,’ he said, ‘we got no family nearby. But I’m almost seventeen, and Sam’s the single most competent kid I know, and our dad never leaves us for more than a few days now and again, so we’re fine. Now. You gonna tell me why me and my brother are down here, or are we just playin’ twenty questions?’

 Dr. Epley was looking a little annoyed with his tone, but Órla never so much as batted an eye. ‘You’re down here because Mrs. Raithen called us after Sam’s gym class, Dean,’ she said, quiet and even and calm. ‘She and Coach Peterson were both worried about the bruises they saw on your brother’s back in the pool.’ 

‘Yeah, and I told them what happened,’ Sam said.  ‘I told _all_ of you what happened; Dad took Dean and me riding last weekend and I fell off the stupid hor—’

‘We know, Sam.’ Dr. Epley was older than Órla, with grey hair loose around her shoulders, and she had a soft voice and kind, tired eyes. ‘But as we said, Mrs. Raithen doesn’t think those bruises came from tumbling out of a saddle.’ 

They'd come from Sam being dragged twenty feet along a rocky creek bank and then held facedown in the water and damn near drowned by three pissed off water spirits, but it's not like Dean could _tell_ them that. 'Yeah, well, Mrs. Raithen wasn't on the trail with us when Calamity Jane here went flyin',' he said instead, shortly. 'So how in the hell would she—'

‘She volunteers in a domestic abuse center in the evenings, Dean.  She has for a long time.’

Dean just looked at her a moment, in silence, then back at Órla. There was a sick tight serious panic blossoming in his gut now, because this wasn’t good; this really, really wasn’t good. He forced his voice to stay steady. 'If you’re accusin’ my family of somethin’, you might as well just say it.’

‘Right now we’re not accusing anyone of anything,’ the social worker replied, gently, and Dean recognized the same tone his father used on witnesses who were spooked and getting ready to run: _you can trust me; no need to worry; do as I say, and everything will be fine_. ‘And we can get this cleared right up this afternoon, okay? I’d just like to take Sam in to our local pediatrician so that she can take a look at him—I’d like her to take a look at you, for that matter—and—’

Dean blinked at her in genuine confusion. ‘The hell do you mean, take a look at _me_? I’m—’

‘Sixteen,’ she said, still gently. ‘Which means you should still be under a pediatrician’s care, Dean.  And yes, I’d like her to take a look at you.’ She nodded toward his right hand. ‘You have lovely hands, you know that?  But three of those fingers have been broken more than once, I think. They were set well, but they weren’t set perfectly; you didn’t see a doctor when you got hurt, whenever that was.’ Órla tilted her head, just a little, as she looked at him.  ‘And from the way you’ve been holding yourself since you came through that door, I would bet you’ve got a recently dislocated shoulder bound up under those shirts.’

Dean was pretty certain he would have been impressed, had he not been so terrified that this quiet-voiced, sharp-eyed civilian was about to try to take Sam away from him. ‘Yeah, well. I don't.' He could feel nervous sweat slicking his back, forced himself to smile—nothing more than just a lift of his mouth, utterly humorless. ‘And before you ask? I don’t strip until the second date.’

Órla studied him in silence for a long moment.  Dean wished her luck in getting anything off his face; he might not be able to hide a hurt shoulder, but he’d broken himself of the last of his tells a year ago. ‘Then just take a ride with me over to Dr. Owens’ office, all right?’ she finally said.  ‘We’ll get you and Sam both checked out, and if Doc gives you the all-clear, I’ll take you right back to your motel, throw in Chinese take-out on the county.’

‘No.’

‘Dean—’

‘Ms. Grey. I appreciate you lookin’ out for my little brother, I really do.  But I’m not goin’ anywhere, and you sure as shit are not takin’ _Sammy_ anywhere, without first talkin’ to my dad. Not unless you’ve got a warrant, which I am pretty sure you don’t.’ 

For one teetering, terrifying moment Dean thought he’d been wrong, but—‘No,’ she agreed.  And then, quietly, ‘Though I can get a court order to take both of you in, if I have to. I would very much prefer if you didn’t make me do that, Dean.  All Dr. Epley and Mrs. Raithen and Coach Peterson and I want to do is help.’

‘We don’t need any help.’ Sam said it with him, in that kind of awesome, eerie harmony they had sometimes, though judging by the looks on both women’s faces, it was veering more toward _eerie_ than _awesome_ this time, and was probably doing shit for their tale of Happy Normal Family. Damn it.

‘We don’t,’ Dean repeated, on his own, firmly, quietly. ‘Look, I get that Mrs. Raithen deals with a lot of shit off the clock, okay? But Sammy fell off a friggin’ horse. It bruised the hell out of the kid's back, but he didn't break any bones and he didn't hit his head.  ‘S all that happened.’

‘I’d very much like to believe that,’ Órla replied. She didn’t say the _but I don’t_ aloud; she didn’t need to. She regarded them in silence, then: ‘Dean, I have just two more questions for you, all right? Sam’s English teacher told me today that his class wrote essays about their heroes last week. Did you know that Sam wrote about you?’

Dean blinked.  He glanced over at his brother, who was suddenly staring determinedly at his lap, ears flushing a sweet, pretty pink. ‘What?’ 

‘Mr. Hart kept a copy of it, because he thought it was so lovely,’ Órla continued, tugging a photocopied paper from the folder beside her on the desk. ‘And you do write beautifully, Sam,’ she added, with a smile at his blushing little brother. ‘But part of this worried me a bit, you know? Where you first explain why Dean is your hero.’ She smoothed out the paper; Dean would have recognized his brother’s pointy, untidy hand anywhere in the world. ‘Dean’s the best, bravest brother anyone could ever have,’ she read. ‘He’s good at everything he does, even if he doesn’t always think so, and he’s a lot smarter than he lets most people see. He takes care of me when I’m sick, or when I’m scared, and he always tries to protect me, no matter what.’ She looked up at them over the edge of the paper, eyes blue and piercing and so, so bright. ‘Dean.’ Her voice was soft, so soft, as easy as a lullaby. ‘Who are you protecting him from?’

 Dean said nothing. There was a sweet, tight ache in his chest. _He’s good at everything he does, even if he doesn’t always think so, and he’s a lot smarter than he lets most people see._

‘'Cause see, I'm worried it might be your dad,' Órla said, still softly. ‘And Dean, whoever it is, we can help you; we can help you both, if you just—’

‘Our dad doesn’t hit me.’ Sam’s voice was shaking; Dean couldn’t tell whether he were acting. ‘I keep telling you, he _doesn’t hit me_ , nobody hits me, Dad doesn’t hit _Dean_ , and I don’t know why you won’t _believe_ —’

The last bell rang for the school day, loud and harsh, and Dean had never in his life been more grateful to hear it.

‘Sam—’

‘We’re done,’ Dean said, standing, because they couldn't make them stay here, not without a court order (and several goddamned cops), and he wasn't planning on giving anyone time to get that kind of shit in order. His little brother’s hands were trembling, and he had them tucked inside his sleeves to hide it; Dean tugged him gently to his feet. ‘Look, lady. Like I said. I appreciate you lookin’ out for m’brother. But you don’t know me, and you don’t know Sammy, and you sure as hell don’t know the first damn thing about our dad.’ He looked down at Sam. ‘You need to stop at your locker, kiddo, or you got your stuff for tonight?’

Sam wiped a hand across his eyes, his sleeve tugged down over his fingers; he looked all of five years old. ‘I’ve got it,’ he mumbled.

He looked back at Órla. ‘Our dad’s supposed to be home this evening,’ he said, eyes steady on hers as he lied, and lied, and lied. ‘Probably by six, definitely seven. You wanna come talk to him, you know where we live.  C’mon, Sammy.'

He got his little brother out of the office, out of the building, across the street, and into the cab of the rusty F-150 John had rustled up for them two months ago.  He stared blindly for a long moment at the dash before he got the key in the ignition; it took him two tries to get the car started, because his hands were shaking, and he couldn’t get them to stop.

_Right now we’re not accusing anyone of anything._

_I can get a court order to take both of you in, if I have to._

_Who are you protecting him from?_

'Dean?' Sam's voice, sounding impossibly young.  'Dean, what are we gonna do?'

It was nearly a thousand miles to Bobby’s, but Dean didn't have a damn clue where else to _go._ They had eighty-seven dollars in cash at the motel and no working credit cards; it would be enough for gas to Sioux Falls, probably, but they’d have nothing left over for food or a room, and they weren’t gonna be able to drive straight through: Dean had slept three hours last night, up researching for their father, and he had six, maybe seven hours of driving left in him before he crashed.  He closed his eyes, briefly, pulled up a map of I-90 from memory. The tightness in his chest started easing, just a little. There was a Walmart a little less than an hour across the state line in Wyoming, and their parking lots were usually safe enough places to sleep in. Seven and a half hours out, maybe, if he kept to within five or ten miles of the speed limit, which he was gonna have to; he couldn’t risk being pulled over. Seven and a half hours. He could do that. Grab a ninety-nine cent cup of coffee from a gas station in a couple hours or so, and he could do that. Didn’t solve the problem of food, but they had some leftover mac and cheese and some bread and peanut butter in the fridge that they could throw in their bags and cobble together a supper from tonight, and he’d lift something from Walmart for a quick breakfast in the morning, grab a couple of road snacks for Sam. They’d be at Bobby’s by mid-afternoon tomorrow.

He swallowed. He breathed. He opened his eyes to look at the clock on the dash. The motel was ten minutes away; he and Sam needed three minutes, maybe, to grab their shit and clear out, so call it twenty, all told, to be safe.  Too much to hope for, probably, that Órla the Annoyingly Observant would fall for the lie that their father was on his way home, that all anyone had to do was wait until this evening to talk to him, but even so . . . even so, they were probably gonna be okay. On a Friday afternoon in Nowhere, Montana, it was gonna take longer than twenty minutes—please God, let it take longer than twenty minutes—to get a DA on the phone and find a judge to sign a warrant and get a social worker and maybe a cop over to their motel.

‘Okay,’ he said, as he put the car into drive and eased onto the road.  ‘Listen, kiddo, we’re just gonna grab our stuff and get outta here, okay?  Head for Bobby's. We'll call him from the road. There's—'

‘I’m sorry,’ Sam whispered. ‘Dean, Jesus, I’m sorry, I'm so—’

Dean glanced over at him, startled. ‘You got nothin’ to be—’

Sam shook his head, face still flushed, lashes damp with frustrated, angry tears. ‘My fault,’ he finally managed. ‘Shouldn’t have taken off my—I forgot about the freakin’ _bruises_ , and I just—’

‘Hey, hey.’ One hand on the wheel, foot on the gas, and eyes on the road, Dean fisted a hand in the back of his little brother’s tee and pulled; and Sam might have been five feet and a couple of inches of snarky, snarling independence these days, but he slid over to tuck right into Dean’s side all the same, hid his face for a long moment against his brother’s shoulder. Dean let his mouth linger briefly in Sam’s silky hair. ‘Wasn’t your fault,’ he said, softly. ‘And everything’s gonna be okay, Sammy.  All right?  I promise. Everything’s gonna be fine. We just gotta get gone.’

***

The office was quiet after the Winchester boys left, save for the muted noise of the end of the school day filtering in from the hall. Órla stood silently for a moment, looking at the empty chairs where the boys had been: Sam quiet and tense and clearly so very unhappy; Dean whip-smart and clever-mouthed and both more competent and more broken than almost any child she’d ever seen.

 ‘You never met their father?’ she said, quietly, and Norah shook her head.

‘No.’ She lifted her chin in the direction of the door. ‘Susan did, back in September, when he filled out the paperwork for the boys’ enrollment.  Said he seemed gruff, but pleasant enough.’ 

Órla nodded, considering.  _Our dad’s supposed to be home this evening,_ Dean had told her, utterly unprompted, this boy who had volunteered nothing from the moment he’d walked in the door. _Probably by six, definitely seven. You wanna come talk to him, you know where we live._

Norah was watching her with quiet eyes. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘Hurry,’ she replied, reaching for the phone. ‘They’re going to run.’


	2. Chapter 2

Órla got to the motel fifty-three minutes after she'd picked up the phone in Norah's office, and fifteen after Carlos had picked her up in his cruiser at the school, but she knew, even then, that she was probably too late.

The manager let her in to the Winchesters' room ('they're good boys, ma'am, never been any trouble at all'), but the place was already empty, or near enough. There was exactly one breakfast's worth of dishes in the sink, and the edge of a tattered paperback was sticking out from beneath one bed, but there were no toothbrushes at the bathroom sink, no bags in the corner, nothing in the dresser drawers or the closet or the small fridge—all of which were all standing open, as though the boys had grabbed things from them so hurriedly they'd had no time to push them closed.  Órla raked a hand back through her hair.  They weren't long gone, clearly, but all the same, she had no way to find them.  There was no telling which direction they'd gone, and she had no idea what they were driving: Dean didn't park on school grounds and so had never registered a vehicle with the office, and though the Montana MVD had records for more than thirty Winchesters on file, none of them were for a Dean or John.

She sat down on the edge of the stripped bed, with a helpless, weary worry gnawing at her gut. She hated this part of her job. Helping children, helping families—that's why she's gone into social work, and she rarely regretted that choice, but days like this, when there were children who were clearly hurting, who were clearly _being hurt,_ and whom she couldn't help—

Sighing, heart-sore, she reached under the bed for the book one of them had left behind. It was an old copy of _The Hobbit_ , battered, dog-eared, much-read, and clearly cherished, with a library stamp crossed out on the inside cover and _If Found, Please Return to Sam Josiah Winchester_ written in a careful, childish hand beneath. Opposite, on the title page, in a different hand all together, was 

_Happy Birthday, Geek Boy.  Don't read it all in one place. -D_

Órla smoothed a thumb over the inscription, wondered how many other childhood treasures Sam had accidentally left behind over the years, how many Dean had lost. She guessed that the two of them were on their way to their father, maybe, wherever he was, and she knew that her chances of finding them again were slim: cooperation across state lines was shitty, and if John took them out of Montana (and surely he would take them out of Montana), then they were as good as gone. She could keep an eye out, could maybe get in touch with some offices in Idaho and Washington and ask them to do the same, but there was nothing for her to do beyond that, and she had twenty-three other open case files on her desk.

'Órla?' Carlos, grey-haired and solid as an oak tree, stuck his head around the open door, sunlight flashing on his badge. 'Anything?'

She shook her head. 'They're gone,' she said.

His mouth twisted in sympathy. 'Happens, kiddo.'

She nodded, suddenly tired past the telling of it. 'Yeah,' she agreed, quietly, and stood. She looked down at the book she was holding for a long minute more, then tucked it carefully into her bag and took it with her back out into the sunshine. She'd return it, happily, if she ever saw Sam Winchester again.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean had banked on seven and a half hours for the drive to Sheridan.

With traffic, two pit stops, and a brief pause for their makeshift supper on the other side of Billings, he made it in just under eight, pulling into the Sheridan Walmart as the clock was ticking over to 10:30 on the dash. His hands were trembling, very finely, as he put the truck into park just outside the yellow glow that one of the big parking lot lights was throwing out into the dark, because he'd needed to be asleep about an hour ago. But they were _here,_ finally, one state line and five hundred miles away from Órla Grey, and in the safest place that Dean could think of for the night. He sat for a moment, silently, listening to the engine tick down and just watching the light shining from the front doors of the store. There was a greeter in a blue vest visible inside, and stupid as it might have been to feel comforted by a giant box store in the east corner of Wyoming, Dean felt something in him relaxing a little, all the same. Walmarts had been their playgrounds since he and Sammy had been little kids, had been a constant all his life. They were where he'd taught Sam to ride a bike (the crash into the Barbie display had been unfortunate) and dribble a basketball, and they always felt _familiar_ , somehow, comforting in their regularity. Dean may not have been able to count on much these days, but he could always be sure that the deodorant was in the third aisle of 'personal care' no matter whether they were in Florida or Nebraska, and that meant something, it really did.

He looked over at his little brother, who was already sacked out against the passenger window, wrapped up in their old down blanket with a little smudge of peanut butter still clinging to the edge of his pretty mouth. Supper hadn't been much—peanut butter sandwiches and yesterday's cold mac and cheese, two cans of Coke, and half a bag of M&M's that Sam had found in the glove box—and it was more than three hours behind them, besides, but he wasn't going to risk stealing anything until they were ready to leave. What they'd had would hold them 'til morning.

God, he was so tired.

He tipped his head back against the seat back, closed his eyes for just a second, just to rest them, because he couldn't nod off just yet. It was too cold to sleep out here just in shirtsleeves, or at least it would be as soon as the heat in the cab faded; he needed to get his jacket, Dad's jacket, from where it was tucked behind their seats with their bags. He didn't want to wake Sammy to share the blanket. Kid had had a crap day, and he was sleeping now, and he looked warm and really comfy, and so Dean was just gonna . . . gonna let him do that. Sleep. Yeah. He was gonna let Sammy sleep, and he was gonna get his jacket; he was gonna get his jacket in just . . . one . . . 

***

He half-woke, an indeterminate amount of time later, to his leather jacket spread across his lap and Sam pressed up against his side, trying desperately to tuck the blanket around him in the dark.

He cracked an eyelid, swallowed, tried to remember how to make his mouth work. Realized that the odd noise he was hearing was the sound of his own teeth chattering, and that he could scarcely feel his hands. 'S-Sammy, what—' 

'I woke up and you were shaking.' Sam's _voice_ was shaking, badly. 'Dean, you're freakin' _frozen_ ; it's like thirty-five degrees outside and you're just—move over, okay? Get your jacket on and move over. You gotta warm up.' Sam was already pushing him, small hands insistent on his chest; half-drunk with exhaustion and sluggish with the cold, Dean let his little brother help him into his jacket and then manhandle him until he had his back to the driver's door, with one foot in the footwell and his other leg propped up against the seatback, and then Sam was tucking himself into the vee of Dean's legs and curling up against his chest, his bony shoulder blades against the steering wheel, cheek pressed against Dean’s collarbone, one arm folded up between them.  He was trying to get their comforter up over both of them with the other when Dean finally blinked himself awake enough to be helpful; he got both of them tucked in, tugged the blanket halfway up over Sam's head so that the kid was in a soft, snug cocoon, wrapped his arms around his little brother unsteadily beneath it. Jesus, Sammy was warm.

'You should turn the heat on,' Sam said, worriedly. 'Dean, turn the heat on, just for like ten minutes; you gotta—'

Dean shook his head. 'Not gonna waste the gas,' he managed, and clenched his jaw to still its shaking. 'Sammy, I'm fine; just—'

'We could go inside for a little—'

'Shh, shh. Hey.' Dean didn't want to go inside, not if he could help it; it was late enough by now that Sammy was gonna draw someone's attention if they were wandering around the store alone, and the last thing they needed was some nosy, well-meaning civilian wondering where their parents were. 'I'm good, okay? You're like a freakin' toaster, man. I'll warm up in a couple of minutes.' And he would, he knew; the shakes were already lessening, his hands steadying, the leather of his jacket heating up; he didn't think he'd been asleep, or freezing, for all that long. Sam stayed a taut, tight bundle of nerves against him all the same, and Dean rubbed at his kid's bruised back, gently, with one hand. 'Sammy, seriously, I'm fine, okay? See? Already warmer. I'm real sorry, kiddo. I didn't mean to scare you.'

‘You should've woken me up.' Sam's voice was quiet and upset. 'Dean, whenever I—when did I even fall asleep? You should've woken me _up_ ; I was gonna stay awake with you 'til we got here—'

'I know,' Dean said, too tired to argue, or to point out that Sam was twelve years old and had had an epically shitty day and didn't get enough sleep as it was, and that Dean was never gonna wake him up for anything short of the world being on fire if he could help it. 'I know, Sammy. I will next time, okay?'

Sam was still for a moment, probably suspicious of his easy victory, before he gave an irritated huff and curled in a little closer, shifting a little to wind skinny arms around Dean's ribs beneath his jacket, and the two of them were quiet for a little while then, the windy night pressing in huge and dark and lonely all around them. Dean's face was still chilly in the cold air of the cab, but within ten minutes the rest of him was warm as toast, and with his hand still drifting in easy, absent circles on his brother's back, Sammy had already gone heavy and relaxed against him, all warmth and weight and a mop of tousled hair. If their dad were here, Dean was pretty sure that he'd have been lecturing him about how Sam was too old to be petted like a puppy, but their dad _wasn't_ here, and Dean had frankly never seen the problem with it, anyway. The kid was good with a gun, better with throwing knives, and could rattle off shit in Latin almost as fast and easy as Bobby or Jim, and if he still needed Dean's hand in his hair sometimes to fall asleep, or wanted to curl into the cradle of his arms after a bad hunt or a crap day—what the hell did it matter, so long as both of them got some sleep?

'Dean?' Sam said, softly, into the dark.

Dean tucked their blanket a little more firmly around him, kept an eye on the quiet parking lot outside. There were a few other cars parked here and there throughout the lot, four RV's clustered close together in a little caravan, a neat line of semis in a long dark row beyond them. Not for the first time, Dean thought that he'd be happy as a long-haul trucker: nothing to do but drive and drive, take care of his rig, and listen to Coast to Coast at 2 AM, with the blacktop rolling away beneath his tires and Sammy in the cab beside him. 'Yeah?'

Sam said nothing else for long enough that Dean figured he was maybe trying out telepathy, and failing at it miserably, when, 'Would they have kept us together, you think?' he finally asked. His voice was so quiet. 'Miss Grey, I mean. If—if she'd had one of those court orders she needed, to get us to the doctor or whatever, and they—would they have kept us together?'

Dean hadn't thought about that, and didn't much want to, but he strongly suspected that the answer was _no_. He couldn't imagine a foster family not wanting to take Sam in for awhile, Sam who was small and shy and sweet and gave no hint of how dangerous he could be; he had a good deal more trouble imagining any family wanting _him_ , six feet of trouble with a juvenile record that already included robbery and grave desecration and two months at a boys' home. His gut twisted a little at the thought of it, of Sam with strangers, somewhere Dean didn't know and couldn't get to; Sam with no one to watch his back, no one to keep him safe from the dark.

Sam with strangers, in a nice house with hot food and comfortable beds and a—a _dog_ , maybe; Sam not having to live forever in Dean's hand-me-downs; Sam playing soccer after school instead of practicing with his throwing knives.

Sam slipping sweet and easy into a normal, apple-pie life; Sam maybe not wanting to come back to him at all.

His heart hurt.

'I don't know,' he said, very softly. And then, because it was true: 'But I would've come lookin' for you, little brother, if they hadn't.'

Sam said nothing in reply, just nodded, then tightened his arms a little where they were still wrapped around Dean's ribs and tucked his face a little more firmly against Dean's chest; and Dean smoothed a hand over the tangled mess of the kid's hair and let him stay there. The world was so quiet all around them, save for the sound of the wind, and after a few minutes he could feel Sammy starting to fall asleep again, easy and slow.

He tipped his head forward a little to let his mouth and nose rest against the silk of his little brother's hair. _Dean’s the best, bravest brother anyone could ever have,_ he remembered Órla reading, and the memory of it woke a sudden, vulnerable ache just behind his breastbone, sweet and sharp and unfamiliar. He let it sit there in his chest as he breathed in the comforting scent of Sam's cheap shampoo, and if he dozed off awhile later utterly comforted by the warmth and weight of his little brother curled against him, Sammy's breath puffing warm across the hollow of his throat, well—it’s not like there was anyone there who was gonna see.


	4. Chapter 4

**Wednesday**

Nan shuffled across the parking lot, steady and slow, the front wheel of her cart squeaking in the quiet dark of the early morning.

It was cold.  The sun wasn’t up yet, wouldn’t be for awhile, and the wind coming out of the west was sharp with the promise of winter; as she passed beneath one of the big lights by a cart return, she could see her breath smoking white in the chilly air.  She had bundled up as best she could, in the coat that the church people had given to her a year ago and the scarf she’d found last month, but she’d been walking for two miles already, and her bare hands hurt where she gripped the handle of her cart. It didn’t matter. Today was Wednesday ( _Wednesday-after-Tuesday-always-after-Tuesday_ ), and Wednesday-after-Tuesday meant that if she got here before sun-up, the recycling bins would be almost full.  Plastic bottles weren’t the best—they took up too much space for what she could get for them—but cans she could load into her cart easy, and on good days she could find a couple of dollars’ worth of them to take in to the machines.  Sometimes she used the money for a bus ticket downtown, when she needed to get somewhere really warm to rest for the day, like the library or church basement, or the shelter if there were space free; sometimes she went to the Taco Bell up the road instead to get something nice and hot to eat.  She thought she’d go for breakfast this morning, maybe. They were always nice to her at Taco Bell if she got there early, always let her use the bathroom to clean up before she ate and park her cart in the little foyer where she could keep an eye on it; and they gave her a second coffee for free sometimes, or hot water for tea.

She was thinking about what picture she would choose from the menu when she glanced idly through the windshield of a pickup as she passed it, and stopped.

There was an angel asleep inside.

 She stared at him for a long moment, heart-struck, and it took her tattered mind a moment to catch up. Not an angel, she realized at last. He was beautiful, yes, with that soft mouth and sweet face, but he was just a boy, all the same, sleeping and weary and thin. Propped up against the driver’s door, he had a younger boy cradled against his chest, with a tumble of dark hair and the curve of a soft cheek just visible above their battered blanket, and the two of them were tucked in together like puppies, warm and close. For the first time in a long while Nan remembered her little brother Will, the way he’d used to curl into her lap or slip his little hand into hers; the memory brought a sharp, sudden pain to her chest ( _dead-dead-dead-he’s- dead_) and she shied hurriedly away from it.  A heartbeat later the memory had ribboned into mist and was gone, leaving her with nothing but a hollow, confused ache behind her breastbone as she looked at the two sleeping boys.  They were just children, too young to be on their own in this rattletrap of a truck; their mother or father must have been inside the store, maybe buying them something for breakfast, but they shouldn’t have left their boys out here alone.

There were monsters who preyed on little ones in the dark.

Nan couldn't remember how she knew that, but she was suddenly sure of it, all the same.  Wednesday came after Tuesday ( _always Tuesday_ ). Monsters came from the dark ( _from the creek, creeping low_ ). Children should never, ever be left alone ( _Will-is-dead-he's-dead-dead-dead-because-I-left-him-no-don't-remember-that-DON'T-REMEMBER-IT-DON'T—_ ).

She blinked, suddenly uncertain of where she was, knowing only that she was cold and alone. Slowly, it came back to her. It was Wednesday, Wednesday-after-Tuesday-always-after-Tuesday, and Wednesday-after-Tuesday meant that she was at Walmart, to get the cans. There were two boys asleep in a rusty pick-up beside her. She frowned. They were just children, too young to be on their own in this rattletrap of a truck; their mother or father must have been inside the store, maybe buying them something for breakfast, but they shouldn’t have left their boys out here alone. It was cold.

Nan traced a cross gently in the gathering frost on the hood, for protection, for peace, and then continued her slow walk toward the store. 

By the time she was making her way back across the lot, fifteen minutes later, the pick-up and the boys were gone, and she was well content.


End file.
